


the future waits for no one

by Silverfox579



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Adults Are Not Very Helpful, Aria Is Suffocating, As Per Usual Tsuna Has No Idea What's Going On, Bermuda Is Very Near Ecstatic, But He's Here to Help Anyway, Byakuran May or May Not Be in Love, Everyone Is Far From Perfect, Future Vision, Future Vision Is Overrated, Future Vision is a Curse, Human Will vs. Predestined Bullshit, Hurray for Sort-of Happy Endings, Kawahira Is Tired, Mare rings, No One Evil Or Good Because Humanity is Complicated, Parallel Universes, Still Doesn't Justify Making Her Daughter Hide Her Existence, The Arcobaleno Are Bitter Tiny Humans, The Cervello Are Hella Sus, What If Yuni Was Not So Accepting Of Her Fate, Yuni Has No Hero So She Becomes Her Own Villain, Yuni Is Far From Perfect, Yuni Is NOT Luce, Yuni Is Picking Up The Adults' Slack, Yuni Takes Fate Into Her Own Hands, Yuni is Tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29372436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfox579/pseuds/Silverfox579
Summary: Yuni is going mad, has gone mad, and will probably continue to be mad.Or: Sacrifice. She licks her lips, and then smiles, sickly sweet poison drenched in enough sugar to make a man sick. She really hates that word.
Relationships: Arcobaleno & Uni | Yuni, Aria & Uni | Yuni, Byakuran & Uni | Yuni
Kudos: 52





	the future waits for no one

There is a problem with knowing too much.

No- not just knowing. Feeling, experiencing, _Seeing_. There is madness in the groves, and it is a fault of the Giglio Nero's, of their ancestry, to always end up lost before they realize they were walking at all.

Visions are what they experience, alluding to some great or important event in the future, inevitable, unchangeable. They don't exactly show every exact detail to getting there, but the gist of it is understood, accepted, and acted out.

Yuni hates it.

She hates her mother, who goes along with it and will probably reach the end with a smile. She hates her grandmother, who dragged down six (seven, including Colonello) people who _trusted_ her, who would have given her everything, would have fought to the bitter end for her. She hates the Sight she was born with, hates the way the future drips into her eyes like a leaky faucet.

Yuni is going mad, has gone mad, and will probably continue to be mad. 

A part of her also resents the other Arcobaleno, who blame her for sharing a face with the woman they were betrayed by. Resents that they left her to the madness of her Sight. She's never even met them. Not a single one has ever stopped by to even spare a word to a girl who will die before she ever reaches adulthood. Then again, that's probably the reason why. 

In their absence, and their neglect, and her Famiglia's neglect, her mother's neglect to keep her entire existence hidden. None of them ever _think_. They never think beyond the sacrifice that they are fated to pay, living their lives like strung, hung dolls.

Sacrifice. She licks her lips, and then smiles, sickly sweet poison drenched in enough sugar to make a man sick. She _really_ hates that word.

Let the Arcobaleno rot, let her weak-willed mother and her weak-willed family rot. Let them all rot. Yuni will grasp her future with her own hands, regardless of the sacrifice she must pay. If her path be madness, then she will welcome it with open arms, and be a tyrant great and terrible. 

Anything to escape the girl she Sees in her future.

~~~~

Yuni is six when she realizes that she is her mother's dirty secret.

Like all Giglio Nero heiresses, she is too smart at too young an age, too able to comprehend the world around her. She wants to know why she is kept hidden in this small house, why her mother speaks of a Famiglia Yuni is not allowed to meet, why she must one day hold the pacifier her mother is so resigned towards.

But even among the extraordinary, Yuni is unique. So as soon as she sees, she understands. Understands so well that it _burns_.

Her mother has her head thrown back, shoulders shaking as laughter and joy lights up her face, a blonde man smiling, completely smitten, beside her. Freer and more radiant than she has ever been with Yuni, when her face is only coated with sad, quiet love, so quiet that it borders on _ashamed_. 

Aria does not hate her daughter, but she cannot stand to look at her. Cannot stand to love her too deeply, too dearly, too fearfully. She is the child she was forced to conceive through the plannings of fate, with a man who she did not love, and her Sight is too weak to be able to see _why_ it was just the best choice- too weak to do anything but accept the outcome.

Yuni's Sight is more powerful than her and grandmother Luce combined. 

And this - right here - is where her Sight begins to deviate from her mother's.

She runs all the way back to the house, their house, but really, it's just _her_ house, and digs up every ancient record she can on her Sight. She doesn't care for the tears dripping down her eyes, trails of fire that burn their way into her heart.

There must have been thousands of records, meticulously kept by each of the Giglio Nero Donna's since the Famiglia's founding. Yuni takes her time to look through each and every one in the time her mother is away - which is often, always - and her notes on their notes quickly fill the space beneath her bed. 

She is too young for her mother to teach her own to summon the Cervello, but that doesn't matter because duh, future vision. Yuni's too-fast brain is running a mile a second as her emotions sway, rise, fall, and shatter with each word she reads.

The Giglio Nero is a family of cowards, and Yuni refuses to be one of them.

So, she makes her choice.

"Bring me the rings," she says in her voice drenched with the sweet tone of a child. "There is something I must confirm."

The woman with cotton candy pink hair and a domino mask hesitates and says, "However, the Mare Rings are to be sealed until Byakuran awakens-"

"And they will be returned," Yuni replies, gripping her notebook to her chest. "As I said, I am only confirming something. We both know my Sight is stronger than my mother, and I also know that you'll end up giving me the rings anyway."

The Cervello bows her head and disappears to retrieve the Mare Sky Ring. When she returns, Yuni dismisses her, and looks down at her notebook one last time, heart pounding furiously in her chest.

She is committing a Taboo by doing this. She will go mad with the knowledge of combined Sight and parallel worlds. Nearly as mad as Byakuran is destined to go, one day, in that inevitable future where he destroys the world. 

Sacrifice. She clenches her fist. Her mother, her grandmother, and all of her ancestors had not been willing to make this sacrifice, had been so eager to run to death instead of madness, no matter who that madness could save, who it could protect, what it could _end_.

Yuni is six and she has nerves of pure and utter steel. Her life is a hollow play, a puppet on strings. She does not care what this costs her, as long she reaches that slim, slim possibility of something like freedom. 

She takes a breath, closes her eyes, and puts on the ring.

~~~~

"What have you done?" is the first thing she hears. 

Yuni looks over at Aria, her eyes so very close to blank. "What you couldn't. And what you won't."

Aria looks at her with an expression of pure heartbreak. If she were so wrecked about it, perhaps she should have worn the ring instead. But no, it never occurred to Aria to do anything but bow to fate, at the cost of her daughter, her lover, her life, everything she swore to protect.

The laughter of a pure-hearted girl so like her mother echoes in Yuni's mind. She is not that girl. And she has what she needs. Now, it's just a matter of seeing it done. Unlike Byakuran, she may only use the rings once, and there was only thing she searched for. She will need his help to find the steps to get there.

"Yuni-"

"Just let me go. If you loved me at all."

"What will you do?" Aria asks, her voice barely above a whisper. "He'll sense the change of bearers, you know he will."

"Good," Yuni replies, laughter rattling in her mind like a broken record, over and over and over and over again. "I want him to."

~~~~

Of course, Kawahira does not disturb her. He knows better than Aria what Yuni has done, can sense her shattered, broken flames and knows what they mean. He will leave her be, watching and waiting to see what changes she will make with her heavily-cost knowledge.

Yuni's Sight is changing rapidly will her newfound decision, the future dragging itself to keep up with her. It's a delightful, ecstatic feeling and she wakes up laughing at the taste of blood in her mouth. In this case, her foresight is appreciated.

It takes her two weeks to find Byakuran, suffocating under the Gesso Famiglia, and her newfound Cloud flames brush against his Sky until he's lured out from the glorified prison.

"Hello," Yuni greets, smoothing out her short leather pants and cut-off top, a mirror to the Cervello's preferred gothic lolita style. She has greater appreciation for the organization now. "If you'd like to escape, I'll bring them to their knees for you. But in return, you've got to do the devil a favor."

"Anything," Byakuran agrees. It's not fear that gets him to agree. It's mind-numbing, tooth-rotting boredom. She must be the only interesting that's happened to him since he was born.

Yuni smiles with far too many teeth and slips a ring on his finger while brushing a kiss to his cheek, then sauntering into the Gesso mansion to dominate the Famiglia and leaving the white-haired boy to scream on the pavement. 

Her Cloud, sprinkled with chipped, broken fragments of a once-Sky, suit her perfectly, madness and all. The ones inside are far too unprepared to deal with a Cloud who knows what they're doing, a Cloud who has accidentally peeked into alternate dimensions while searching for the solution to save the world and took a bit of their knowledge with her.

By the time Byakuran comes back inside, she has every single member of the household on their knees in the sitting room, and a cup of tea in hand. She smiles when she sees him, setting it on a saucer, and asks, "Ready?"

Byakuran lets out a delighted little laugh and joins her on the table, an arm curled around her waist and lips twisted into a fox-ish smile. "My, Yuni-chan, you never cease to amaze. I've seen what you wanted me to. Sealing the Ring like that so I wouldn't get lost was so very sweet of you."

"I don't want you broken yet," she replies, smiling like a dainty little princess. "I've had my turn. Now, it's your turn to fulfill the deal."

"Will my little devil fly off when I do?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. "But I could always use an angel for company."

Byakuran smiles. It's good to know that even though _that_ world's Byakuran had been attempting to traverse the route of sanity, it hasn't rubbed off on him. It might only be knowledge of one parallel world, since she _did_ seal the ring for him with the Cervello's help, but it is still enough to change someone, especially this someone.

They walk out after setting fire to the mansion and breaking a few bones. She's Seen what they've done to him, and though it's nothing particularly criminal, it was nothing kind either. It's only by the bare hesitance left inside of her that she does not kill them. 

"So much to do, so little time," he sighs happily. "Lucky for you, we're right on time to catch our lovely Tsunayoshi-kun's first duel against Mukuro-kun. Head to Namimori, Japan, and Kokuyo Land will bring you into contact with _them_."

"Tell if you'd like your memories sealed," Yuni says, smiling. "The least I can do is put you back together."

"You'll never take me alive!" he declares valiantly. There is a silent promise to split paths- for now. He has people he needs to gather, his lovely Guardians, Elements, followers, whatever you'd like to call them. And she also has a future to remake. 

What Byakuran desires is ~~[purpose]~~. She knows this better than anyone. He will walk with her if just to see where the path she's leading goes. 

"We'll meet in the place the sky never falls," he says, pausing her from leaving with his smile. It's a little sadder than she would have expected from him, and he kneels to link their pinkies together. "Won't we, Yuni-chan?"

She smiles, and it's as empty as the Future-That-Will-Never-Be. "Mm. Until then, Byakuran."

Then she turns, without looking back, and her smile drops, leaving only the barren madness of a girl who hated as desperately as she loved.

~~~~

Chains lash out, reaching for the fallen bodies on the pavement. A small brunette stumbles out of the way, urged on by his tutor, his expression alarmed as his enemy is suddenly yanked backward by the swarm of rusted chains.

He's about to make an instinctual move to help, when a young girl's voice cuts through the clearing.

"Please let him go, Vindice-san."

Through the door where the mummified beings entered, Yuni steps through. The hitman's expression stiffens, just briefly, before it smooths and he says, "You're..."

Yuni does not acknowledge him, staring at the Vindice. "I would like to speak with Bermuda-san. Will you take me to him, Vindice-san?"

The Vindice is in front of her before she can blink. Yuni remains calm, a small smile on her face. 

"The Giglio Nero heiress," the Vindice grounds out, chains dangling around her threateningly. "What does one of you want with Bermuda-sama?"

She hums. "Nothing special. I'm just thinking of taking up the offer he left for my grandmother. It is still open, isn't it?"

The Vindice pauses, and then tilts its head forward. "However, these criminals-"

"Are meaningless compared to what I have to say," Yuni replies. "Daemon Spade will find his way to the boy. You don't need to keep him locked up in Vendicare to have the Oath followed through."

It nods and a black portal of flames opens up invitingly. She smiles and takes a step forward when Reborn calls out, "Wait. I'm not letting you go with them alone."

"Why would you care?" Yuni replies, turning her head with a puzzled expression. "After all, we're merely strangers."

Reborn's expression is shadowed by his fedora, but he says, "Even so."

"Don't bother," Yuni's gaze slides away from him and onto Sawada Tsunayoshi, who looks confused and baffled and ready to fall dead asleep any second now. Her smile softens into something much less brittle, and she curtsies toward him before stepping into the portal. 

Her feet hit carpeted floor and when she lifts her gaze, it's to the sight of Bermuda von Veckenstein behind a beautifully engraved oak desk. The innermost heart of Vendicare. It's very pretty.

"Hello," she says, smiling. "I'll cut to the chase. How would you like to wrench ownership of the Arcobaleno system away from Checkerface?"

Bermuda tilts his head like a curious feline and drawls, "Has Christmas come early?"

She laughs, her eyes glinting. Yes, they will do just fine.

~~~~

"So," he sips a cup of tea. "This is how it ends."

"Quite anticlimactic, all things considered," she agrees, something dark and murky hinging on her expression. "Please speak with Talbot-san and arrange things. I believe I've done my part in the matter."

"You have," Kawahira agrees, looking down at the swirling liquid in his cup. "At a great cost."

"When have you cared about costs?" she asks, not cruelly, but just bluntly. "So long as the earth turns 'round the sun, your duty is fulfilled. Take a vacation. Burn the mask. Ah, but I do have one condition to all this."

He tilts his head. "Yes?"

"Do give them the chance to vent," she says with a sly smile on her lips. "It's the least you can do, don't you say?"

Kawahira huffs. "Very well. I suppose I have no use for this then. Shall I say happy early birthday and leave it at that?"

Yuni inspects the Hell Ring he slides across the table and says, "Yes, I do know someone who'd like this. Thank you for the gift."

"It's the least I can do," he replies, taking another sip. "I can manage a hundred or so years more, just to watch over everything for sure. Call my name if you need me. Or if you'd just like some more tea."

She lifts her cup in a salute and he disappears into nothingness. She hums into the silence, and when she closes her eyes laughter threatens to make her skull burst. The emptiness of her shattered Sky flames, ripped away from her, make her Cloud flames gape into the hole hungrily.

She's hanging on the precipice of something. It would be so easy to just fall. She can't quite name what makes her hang on anymore, and static fills her lungs, making them creak.

Two smooth palms cover her eyes. "Guess who?"

"Who?" she asks, a hint playfully.

"Of course, it's Byakuran," Byakuran says, smiling cheerfully and removing his hands, circling around to sit across from her. "Ta-da!"

He holds out a bag of marshmallows to her and she takes it, opening it and then handing it back. He immediately begins to shovel them in by the handful.

"Are we waiting for the other mini-people to arrive?" he asks, despite knowing the answer.

"First we need to gather enough Actives," she says, idly threading a hand through her hair. "I've sent a note to Mammon detailing the location of their Boss. As for CEDEF, they should be coming to support Lal. Reborn has been told to encourage the Tenth Generation to get Active, and then there's the Giglio Nero, and you and yours."

"A bit much, to try and get Tsu-kun and his friends Active in a hurry," Byakuran muses. "He probably won't do it. It'll mess with his tutoring scheme. Too big a leap without the Ring Battles."

She hums. "I agree, partially. Gokudera and Yamamoto need more fine-tuning but Rokudo is already Active and Hibari is on the verge. He does owe me for encouraging the Vindice to leave him be, so I've asked him to encourage Hibari into Activation."

Byakuran giggles. "Now _that_ I want to see. What will you do about the missing amount left?"

"The Cervello will supply what's missing," she replies, looking up and studying the ceiling. "Funny, isn't it? All along, it was so simple, and yet none of them dared to do it."

"Not everyone has your courage," he says, his eyes content to study her young face. "Or your kindness."

"Kindness," she tastes the word, and lets the ash tip down her throat. Laughter, laughter, laughter. "This is not kindness. It's vengeance."

"Kind vengeance," he shrugs. "If it were up to me, I would have left them all to rot. And I have. Multiple times, if you recall."

"I do pity them sometimes too," Yuni replies, standing up and slipping off the chair and touching the side of his cheek. "I'm tired of Seeing, of replaying the same thing over and over again. I want to shatter this cycle, no matter what. I don't care what happens after."

"You care enough to save them in the process," Byakuran smiles a dark, enchanting smile and takes her hand. "But if you don't care, then how about joining my Millefiore? We're missing our leader of the Black Spell."

Yuni blinks, slow and languid, and then murmurs almost distantly, "I _did_ like the cape."

"Matching outfits," he promises with the devil's smile. She responds with an angel's smile.

"Besides," he adds, popping a marshmallow into her mouth. "I'm not missing my chance to become Tsunayoshi-kun's BFF this time around. We are, after all, three peas in a pod."

And the void in Yuni's soul warms, just slightly. She is no Sky, and she will never let herself be chained down by fate like her fellows, but...maybe...

~~~~

"Thank you for gathering," Yuni says, without a trace of a smile and a familiar cape weighed on her shoulders. She's still too much of a child, but Byakuran is a steady presence beside her, reminding her of which world and which 'present' she's in. "I'll keep it simple. We need about five hundred trillion Fiamme volts to fill these containers. The spark must be enormous. It'll be most effective if those of similar Flame type stand together during the activation."

"Once the spark is light, Bermuda-chan will use his special sparklers to make the flames rotate for the rest of eternity," Byakuran continues, grinning, over her shoulder. "Eventually, enough speed and friction will build up over the next few centuries and the system will become self-sustaining."

"Please refrain from killing anyone you dislike," Yuni finishes. "The Cervello are here to provide extra support where needed, but as you all know, as neutral officiators, they resign the right to blacklist anyone who violates the rules from the Alliance. We'll begin in half an hour, once the containers are set up."

Then she nods toward Talbot, who moves forward with the help of the Cervello to begin setting up. Explosions and fighting begin almost immediately, but she has no doubt they'll keep her words in mind. 

"Wait," Mammon calls out to her, leaving the fighting immediately to catch her before she leaves. "You never explained how you came up with this. If this was the future that was going to happen, then why-"

They cut themself off, but the question is clear. And it's an answer that all of the Arcobaleno want to hear. Yuni observes them, and then nods, saying, "Let's go to another room. Byakuran, will you keep the walls intact, please?"

"Got it," he hums, stepping away while she enters a separate room with the cursed infants...and her mother.

"Yuni," Aria starts, then hesitates when their eyes meet. She swallows. "This...isn't the future I Saw. I Saw none of this except for a few days ago."

"I know," Yuni says, climbing onto the seat and propping herself up there. "Just like Grandmother didn't see anything except her predestined future either. I Saw that future too, but I just decided I didn't want to follow it. Just that."

"So how did you acquire the method to cure the curse?" Verde asks, pushing up his glasses with keen eyes. "Assumedly, from what you've said so far, you didn't come up with it on your own."

"You're right. You have Sawada Tsunayoshi to thank for that," she says, with a small slip of a smile at Reborn's surprised blink. "One from another universe, anyway."

Aria stands up, her face pale. "You committed the Taboo."

Yuni looks at her with an amused smile. "Yes, I did. Things would have been much simpler if someone had just bothered to do it earlier, you know."

"That method was forbidden for a reason!" Aria's fists tighten. "Your flames..."

"Yes, they're shattered," Yuni says simply, her eyes drifting to the door. "I'm a Cloud now, I suppose."

"Wait, wait, I don't understand," Colonello says, massaging his temple. "Start from the beginning, kora. What's this Taboo?"

"That's right!" Skull looks around wildly. "Explain!"

"Part of our duty is to oversee certain parts of the Trinisette reach their destined owners," Yuni says, threading a hand through her loose side ponytail. "For example, the Arcobaleno pacifiers, or the Mare Rings. Vongola usually takes care of the succession of their rings on their own."

"The Mare Rings?" Fon tilts his head. "I haven't heard of those before."

"Users have a tendency to go insane," Yuni replies. "They have the ability to look into parallel worlds. Too much information corrupts the brain over time. For Seers, the ultimate Taboo is to access the Mare Rings. They can be used once, only once, and the flames of the one using it will be shattered in the process, and typically, their mind as well."

"You...used to be a Sky," Lal says slowly, looking at her with new eyes. Empathetic ones, maybe. They're the only two people in the world who knows what it feels like to have shattered flames. Well, perhaps beside the Vindice. "But why...there was no guarantee you'd survive."

"Because no one was doing anything about it," Yuni says simply. "Mother was simply resigned to her death. In the future I Saw, Byakuran should have inherited the ring and gone mad like his counterparts, killing everyone. Even if it costs me everything...I don't want to just accept that. I can't. Because I'm more selfish than my predecessors."

"Yuni, I never..." Aria swallows. "Did you always think this way?"

Yuni smiles emptily. "Perhaps. I won't ever be the Yuni you knew. But this way, you can also start a new life. You had a child with a man you didn't know just because fate dictated so. Now you can live with Gamma, and the rest of you can have your lives back. Like I said, it would've been simpler if someone had just done this sooner."

"You should have lost your mind," Aria replies, not harshly, just factually. "No one did it because the one record of the woman who did showed her broken mind rendered any information she might have gleaned useless. There was no point."

"Because she didn't have the resolve to live," Yuni replies. "You've always had the resolve to die, and so did Grandmother. No one ever thought about defying fate and surviving."

Aria doesn't look like she knows what to say to that. Yuni doesn't expect her to. She hops off her seat, dusts off her pants, and then looks up and says, "I don't particularly like or dislike any of you, and I don't expect anything from this either. I know you all hate me because I look like my grandmother. With this, I'm finished answering for her sins."

Then she opens the door, and Byakuran asks, a playful smile on his face, "Finished already?"

"There's nothing more to say," she agrees, taking the hand he offers. "How are you feeling about world domination?"

"Iffy," Byakuran replies, smirking. "I think I'll observe Tsunayoshi-kun a bit longer before deciding."

"I want to rest soon," Yuni murmurs. "I'm tired of Seeing. I'm tired of being tired."

"One day at a time, Yuni-chan," he replies, squeezing her hand. "You sealed my path to madness. This time, I'll do the same for you."

Yuni laughs. "You're too late."

"But haven't you heard?" he smile secretively. "There's a Neo Vongola Primo out there somewhere, just waiting to change the world and save people where Byakuran Gesso has failed."

They both turn to see Sawada Tsunayoshi trading blows with a homicidal looking Xanxus, his blazingly beautiful flames burning through the air. When she reaches up to touch her lips, she's smiling, faintly. 

"Yes," she smiles. "Yes, there is."

And, she thinks, it might not be so bad to See that kind of future.

**Author's Note:**

> I found it really weird that no one knew that Aria had a daughter until she was literally dead. It sort of got me thinking that if Aria Saw a predestined future and had already resigned herself to it happening, then like canon!Yuni she would be willing to sacrifice her own personal happiness such as any opinions she might have had about getting pregnant at a young age (before she was killed by the Sky pacifier) to ensure it came true.
> 
> And about the Arcobaleno sort-of hating or at least disliking Yuni because of her resemblance to Luce...well, it just fits my image of them as mega grudge-holders. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Tsuna: Waitwaitwait- first things first. Reborn is an adult?! in the body of an infant?! And there are other infants like him?! a not-infant cult-club?! What memo did I miss?! Also, who the heck is this guy with scars and guns trying to kill me to be Decimo?! I don't even want to be a mafia boss!!!
> 
> Meanwhile, Xanxus: dhueAUGWYEGRIW iM gonNA kILL yOU sAWaDa TrAsH!!!
> 
> Meanwhile, Kawahira: Welp, now I gotta find some OTHER way to hide from the literal zombies after my ass and those not-so-cursed infants who might not be very happy with me right now. Vacation time!
> 
> Meanwhile, Daemon and the Shimon: wait, what about our arc?


End file.
